Husband By Inheritance - Cara Colter

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age three. She had no memory of them, but Corrine said she had foggy memories of something. And Brit’s adoptive parents had told her she was three when she came to them.

      Abby had come because she wanted to know her sisters better, had to know them, had felt as soon as she had seen them, a deep sense of having found herself.

      And maybe, in some small, lost part of herself, she really wanted to believe in fairy-tale endings, wanted to believe in a place with a name like Miracle Harbor, maybe she could expect anything to happen.

      Maybe it had already started, with her at the wrong house, and the car not starting, all things linked together, part of a larger plan.

      For her.

      And what about him? How would he fit into that plan?

      He wouldn’t. He’d done the decent thing tonight, she suspected because his training would allow him to do nothing else.

      By tomorrow, he would be part of her history, somebody she could nod to when she passed him on the street.

      There had been mile-high barriers in that man’s cool eyes, and she felt no desire to try and penetrate that mystery.

      But even if she did decide to try and fulfill that ridiculous condition placed on her gift, she would never pick a man like him. She wanted someone sweet and kind. Someone who would make a good father for her daughter.

      A little pudgy fellow with glasses, who took lunch in a paper bag to his office.

      Upstairs, she heard the groan of a bedspring, and felt the oddest little stir in her stomach. A stir that a little pudgy fellow with glasses would never be able to create.

      Which was just as well. That stir, she knew, led to nothing but trouble.

      Chapter Two

      A streak of sunshine had crept through a crack in the drape, and lay in a stripe across her face, making her blink lazily awake. Abby stretched luxuriously, looked around the room. Even in the full light of day there was not a spiderweb in sight.

      The furnishings were plain, in keeping with what Shane McCall had said about the house being a summer rental, but the room itself was lovely. High, plastered ceilings, wood floors, wide oak window casings.

      Would the house that had been given to her as a gift by a complete stranger be as beautiful?

      She thought of last night, and Shane McCall, and she felt, again, that funny little shiver of pure awareness.

      “Abby,” she told herself. “You are now rested. You are immune to that man. You know the truth about another pretty face. Isn’t that right, darlin’?”

      She reached out to pull her daughter to her, reached further, patted the mattress, and as the awful truth sank in, she sat bolt upright in bed. Only a little dent remained where her daughter had slept snugly beside her last night.

      “Belle,” she called, leaping from bed, “where are you?” She fumbled for buttons on her homemade blouse that had sprung undone during the night, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. This place wasn’t child-proofed like her modest apartment in Chicago. “Belle?”

      She raced into the next room. A chair had been pulled up to the door, the kind that had the twist style of lock on the handle. The door was now open into the hallway that led to the outer door and the kitchen they had been in last night.

      Did the door to the outside have the same kind of lock? Abby tried to think from last night. She was sure the lock she had tried to fit her key into was a deadbolt. Even her precocious daughter would have trouble with that.

      But, as she scrambled into the hallway, her heart sank. The front storm door wasn’t locked. It wasn’t even closed, a brisk, sea-scented breeze coming in through the screen.

      “Belle!”

      “In here.”

      Only it wasn’t Belle who answered. It was him, his voice loaded with irritation.

      She catapulted into the kitchen, and skidded to a halt.

      Immune, she reminded herself.

      But really that rush of relief that her daughter was here and not happily exploring the streets of Miracle Harbor, getting closer and closer to the ocean, seemed to have lowered her defense system again.

      She was suddenly not sure she had registered his full impact last night. Just looking at him made her feel hot and flustered, like a woman who had a sign flashing on her forehead that said: I Need A Husband. Desperately.

      He was a man who didn’t seem to like much clothing. This morning he had on navy blue running shorts that showed off tanned, muscular legs, and a flat, hard fanny. A grey sweatshirt with some sort of police emblem on it stretched tight over the broadness of his chest, sleeves cut off at the shoulder so that every inch of his powerful arms were on display.

      Could a woman look at that and not wonder what it would be like to be held by him? Only if she wasn’t human!

      He had a white towel strung around his neck and his hair was dark with sweat, curling at the tips even though it was so short.

      His facial features, she decided, were nauseatingly perfect. High cheekbones, straight, strong nose, faintly jutting chin. He hadn’t shaved yet today, and for some reason that only made him look better, faintly roguish, untamable.

      She knew all about this kind of man. They could have anything, and they took it. And when they were done they threw it back.

      Only one thing stopped her from hating him completely—the look of muted panic that was in those amazing dark eyes as he surveyed her daughter.

      “What does this kid eat? We’re about out of options, here.” He snapped this at her, like a military man on a mission that was about to fail.

      Abby dragged her gaze away from him. Belle was settled happily on top of a stack of books on a chair, at a kitchen table covered with cereal boxes and bowls.

      “You mean she’s sampling everything?” Abby asked, aghast.

      Her daughter took a regal bite of the offering in front of her, which looked like chocolate covered raisins in milk, swallowed, frowned and pointed autocratically at her next choice.

      Which he, heartthrob of the universe, rushed to get for her.

      “What are you doing?” Abby said, folding her arms across her chest. As if that would protect her. From what?

      Her desire to laugh that’s what, she told herself firmly. At the sight of one hundred and ninety pounds of one hundred percent menacing, masculine ex-cop being commanded by a baby.

      “I’m feeding the kid.” He glowered at Abby.

      “Why?”

      “When I came in from my run, she was just coming out the door of your suite. I tried to stuff her back in, but she wasn’t having any of it. She announced she was hungry, and she damn well expected me to do something about it.”

      “In those words?” Abby couldn’t resist teasing him.

      “She doesn’t need words! All she needs to do is screw up her face and show me her tonsils! When I told her to go back to Mommy, she yelled at me. Loudly.”

      “Belle!”

      “Not a bad girl,” Belle said, anticipating what was coming. “Belle bad?” she asked Shane and blinked at him with sweet coyness.

      “Yes!” he said, but when Belle blinked again, he said, “Maybe not bad. Just stubborn, strong-willed, loud and fussy.”

      “She is not fussy,” Abby addressed the only accusation that was not totally accurate. “She’s taking advantage of you.”

      “A two-year-old?” He paused in his pouring of yet another sample into a bowl and drew himself to his full height, which was

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